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"But they are not often paupers!" said the old crone.

"Well, I knew of one old cripple. Miss Hugglewill," said Mrs. Rice, "that the overseers of the poor in a town in -- , hired another to marry, by giving him a hundred dollars -- and they were actually married."

"Yes," said Mag, "and how long did they live together?"

"Don't know, nor care," said the other.

"Well, I know. They lived together just three weeks, and then petitioned for a separation, and the courts said there had been no legal marriage at all, ha! ha! ha!" (5)

"Who knows," said aunt Prescott, looking up calmly upon them, "who knows," and she now looked serious and solemn, "who can tell, but this also was one of the Lord's dreams, to show us poor, sinful creatures, that aunt Joanna will be invited to and entertained at the marriage supper of the Lamb at the great white throne of God in heaven?"

And the frightened, and railing, and laughing group of wretched paupers, grew serious also, and still, and thoughtful, and more calm, and one by one they slunk away to their quarters for the night.

Jims rolled in the old blanket on the floor, snored and dreamed, and shrieked, for he seemed once to think three or four ghosts were chasing him through the branches of the apple trees, and Mag was one of them, spouting fiery arrows at him from her burning eyes and mouth, and threatening to shake him over the pit of fire. And then he dreamed that Captain Bunce kept him for a whole week in a dark, dungeon-like room, on a crust of bread and a little water, for stealing chickens.

Dan dreamed that he was in heaven, and awoke horribly exercised in mind lest it should, alas! for him, prove true. Little heart had he for that world. But the night wore away and the speegles retired to their graves. Ghosts never rise but in the night.

CHAPTER XXI.
PAUPERS not their own masters or law-makers; which appears very like a state of Involuntariness -- were it not in New England!

It is not strange that neglected and poorly cared for, and despised as were the paupers, many of whom had seen better days, and still carried with them some remaining sparks of former character and life, they should develope in this condition the very worst features of vice, and justly incur the odium that rests on those who lead a vagrant, idle, wasteful life? They could but know and feel their degradation. They were not sent to the poor-house as lunatics, nor as criminals against the laws. They were held in the condition occupied by them simply because they were poor and friendless -- or because they could not supply themselves actual food and raiment enough to keep them alive. Society in a Christian land know that they must not starve by the way side, nor offend community by their nakedness. And the poor-house system grew out of this conviction and the necessity of the case. It was not a system of cheerful, sympathetic benevolence, but a system of coerced relief, in which the people at large submitted to a tax on their property at the smallest possible rate -- it being understood that the paupers who received the aid should not be regarded as claimants on their property in any sense, and the tax should be a gratuity sufficient only for the merest necessity, and nothing beyond.

Of course, at the annual town meeting, the poor, these white men, women and children (!) were, and in many a town in New England it is still so, put up at public auction and sold to be thus supported for the term of one year, to the lowest bidder -- to that person, who after carefully figuring all the cost, is of the opinion he can safely to himself take the risk! or the selectmen of the town make a contract with him in the name of the town.

So is it in good, wise and pious New England, the land of a brave and chivalrous ancestry, the land of the free, the land blessed with and affluent in schools, and colleges, and churches, whose praises live in the songs of ages!

But shame on New England, that she can thus sit calmly by the degradation of her poor -- that she can forget the thousands of her own native children in these polluted poor-houses, half-starved, half-clad, half-sheltered, pampered stock for early graves, tottering souls but half informed, or remembering that a Saviour came into the world!

Is there a church of Christ in New England guilty of this blood? a priest who walks by on the other side this great poverty? Let both remember that it was of the poor in the hedges and by the highways, that the marriage was supplied with guests; that to the poor the Gospel was preached; that the Son of God came to seek and save the lost; that the impotent and feeble folk were the special objects of a Saviour's touch and recovering word; that the despised harlot was forgiven, and that Jesus went among the poor with charity's purest aim, with a benevolence that heaven smiled on, and that earth, awakening from her sloth and sin, should arise to imitate.

Not only are the paupers of New England poorly supplied with food, raiment, and often shelter, but from them have been taken many civil rights and privileges incident to a state of freedom. We shall make this appear as we proceed. Suffice it to say in this place, that in some of the Free States those citizens who became chargeable, as paupers, to the towns or to the State, are disfranchised. (6) They are not allowed to vote; they do not serve on a jury; they can not marry as they will; if they have children, they cannot decide where or when they shall go to school or leave it, learn a trade, or go to any other service or business. Neither can they choose who shall keep themselves; nor, except by entreaty, can they have any particular or special mode of life when at the poor-house, as to room, employment, food, or associates. Still they are not absolutely slaves; for although they are paupers simply on the ground of destitution, they may recover themselves out of that state if property falls to them, or they may be taken out of it by individuals assuming their support. If, however, they have no property -- and as paupers they can not hold property -- and no friends arise to keep them, they remain on the hands of the town. Though independently rich to-day; if to-morrow poor, they are cast into the poor-house and disfranchised -- in effect, disfranchised.